


Alphanumeric Waterfalls

by alekszova



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Deviant Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Porn With Plot, Post-Canon, Self-Harm, Suicide, just overall a lot of unhappiness., maybe? - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-17
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2019-10-11 14:37:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17448905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alekszova/pseuds/alekszova
Summary: Simon and Markus had a relationship before Markus left him for dead at Stratford Tower, but they were never able to admit that they loved each other.Connor is connected to Simon when he kills himself, and it causes him to slip down the slope of deviancy quickly, seeking Markus out for help.





	1. Chapter 1

_nobody_

a person of no importance or influence.

Everything is

**_WRONG._ **

He is not supposed to feel things. He isn’t supposed to feel anything. He isn’t allowed to say those words and have those emotions or—

“Are you hurt?”

What a stupid question, he’s an _android_. He cannot _hurt._

But still—

He is shaking and he finds that his artificial lungs are having troubles and his heart—

 _He doesn’t have a heart._ He doesn’t have a **heart.**

He doesn’t feel anything.

And yet,

“I was connected to its memory,” he says, and he knows he is catching himself at the last second, replacing a pronoun with something else. Reducing an android down to what it has always should have been. _It._ Not he, not him, not his. Just _it._ “When it fired… I felt it die.”

A quick movement,

A gun turned from soldiers to his own neck,

A finger pressed over the trigger.

 _Pain_ blooming for only a nanosecond before it was all gone.

To the PL600, at least.

The pain stayed with _him._ It still resides in his neck, spreading across his jaw, radiating through his skull.

“Like I was dying,” he whispers, keeping his eyes away from the android. If he looks, everything will change more than it already has. Making this a dangerous reality. But the words tumble from his lips anyways, forbidden and _wrong._ “I was scared.”

 

_Scared._

_S_ c _a_ r _e_ d.

_Sacred._

Simon.

Nobody.

“Connor?”

He doesn’t know what’s happening to him. Everything is confused and muddled and he’s still being bombarded with emotions and memories and a _life—_

“I saw something,” he says, and his voice is breaking, fracturing with each syllable as a life of another android spills through his head like a virus—

 _No._ Not like a virus.

Like a tsunami.

A tsunami of a person crashing down on him again and again. Smiles and laughter and jokes shared between people. Concern and pity and hate and—

“A word,” he whispers. “In its memory…”

 _ ~~Love~~. _Jericho.

“Painted—”

But he isn’t thinking of the rusty metal. He isn’t thinking of the letters spelling out _Jericho._

He is thinking of an android’s hands lightly touching his back, his shoulders, his arms. A brush gracing his skin softly, leaving behind fireflies and stars littered through a night sky or waves rolling up on a beach with starfish and seashells.

“Jericho,” he says, and he tries to get his voice under control and not think about _Markus and Simon_ because it _hurts_ and he isn’t meant to _hurt._

 

 

Markus left him.

                             _How could he leave **him?**_

Of all the people. Of all the androids. Of all the things in the entire world he left _Simon._

The boy he tentatively gave his first kiss. The boy he spent wrapped up beside at night while the humans decided whether or not androids are a threat or broken machines or living creatures.

He thought it was for the best, at the time. Leave Simon behind instead of killing him. Let Simon have a hope to live. Hand him the gun that Markus could have shot him with, metal and a slice of hope along with it. _You can get out of this. You can survive._

He had knelt down in front of him, leaned forward close enough to brush his lips gently against his temple, his hand reaching out to clutch Simon’s fingers where it is pressed against his wound, trying to stop the bleeding.

He had wanted to say something. He had wanted to whisper three desperate words, and he couldn’t. The look in Simon’s eye—

If he made it, Markus would tell him then.

He wouldn’t let Simon see the lack of faith he had in Simon’s survival now.

“Just come back,” he says instead, leaving with blue blood slicked across his fingertips, racing across the rooftop with North and Josh—

Leaving

Simon

behind

to die.

 

_Simon paid with his life._

The glass of the window to the store front shatters easily when it’s hit with the truck. Cracking and splintering and glass fragments flying everywhere. When he steps out, he can hear the sound of it crunching underneath his boots as he surveys the store. Androids lined up in perfect rows not blinking an eye at the wreckage.

 _Asleep._ A good term for these androids. Simply machines following orders. _Stay put. Don’t move._ When he touches them, he whispers _you’re free now, you’re awake now._

It feels good to break something. It feels good to cause the kind of chaos he feels on the inside. Tear something apart until there is nothing left but dust. It is all he wants. To feel a little bit better. To take this terrible thing in his chest and shove it out into the world so it’s no longer just residing in him.

Markus pauses by a shard of glass, the blurred, ghostly reflection of the lights and _him_ foggy and lost in the clear surface. He pushes his heel against it, shattering it into a hundred pieces. It does little to help.

But that little feels like a lot.

He walks past it, towards the androids against the wall and he pauses, his hand reaching out towards a CX100. He moves it from the android’s wrist to his shoulder, resting it lightly against the white fabric of his uniform.

 _Simon._ Not his model, but his face.

He clenches his teeth together, refuses to let his jaw tremble like it wants to. Markus moves his hand back to the androids, touching it for the bare minimum it requires to convert him into a deviant.

Then, he moves quickly. Eyes to the ground, never looking back. He sees every surface and every inch of this store except for that CX100 again. He cannot handle it if he looks at him again. It will remind him too much of what he’s lost.

 

 

He is

         **_nobody._**

He is

         **_no one._**

He is

         **_nothing._**

He is

          _not even a **he.**_

Simon is an _android._ An _it._ Not a person, not a living thing. Just a machine with some broken coding, some malfunctioning parts. If Connor tells himself this enough times, perhaps he will believe it. But androids aren’t meant to _believe_ anything other than facts.

The PL600 is, for lack of a better saying, a _thorn_ stuck in his side. He wants to reach and pull it out, but he knows what will happen if he rids himself of that data. He will lose their one insight into Jericho and the deviants’ location. He will lose those small pieces of data he has that Amanda thinks is useful to the investigation.

And, if he takes away Simon from his memory, CyberLife will know, and it will be an admission of something he doesn’t _want_ to admit.

Simon has an effect on him. It is terrifying and tantalizing and terrible.

On the way to Kamski’s, he keeps his eyes stuck on the window beside him, looking out at the buildings and streets as they pass by instead of allowing Hank to see him. He keeps catching glimpses of himself in the mirror. The way his eyebrows are furrowed together, the way his jaw is set in a way as if he’s in deep thought. His LED bright yellow and circling again and again.

He is thinking about Simon. His thoughts are _consumed_ by Simon.

If he focuses too much on this, he starts to drift into Simon’s memories. The feeling of arms wrapped around his waist, the feeling of lips pressed to his neck. _Markus._ All of the memories he is c0nsumed by are connected by _Markus._

He can feel the want in his chest. The yearning for that warmth, for that feeling passed between them. Careful and new but bright and shining. It is raging like a storm. Real and horrifying. They loved each other. It isn’t difficult for Connor to see that. It isn’t difficult for Simon’s data to mingle with his own. His last moments of death tying their coding together in a way that it shouldn’t have. Sudden and abrupt suicide forcing him into this moment.

 _Wanting. Desiring._ Reaching out with all of his power to—

He doesn’t know.

He doesn’t know what he wants more right now.

Markus or Simon.

The hands in his laps twist together a little tighter, holding onto his own hand tightly with the threat of breaking his own fingers. Machines don’t _want_ anything.

~~But deviants do.~~

 

 ~~She’s innocent~~. _She’s a machine._

 _She’s innocent._ ~~She’s a machine.~~

 _~~She’s innocent.~~ _ ~~She’s a machine.~~

She’s—

 

Androids cannot die. There is no reason to pretend that they can. They get destroyed, repaired. They don’t die. They don’t come back to life. Connor knows that best. How many times had he “died”? Three? Four? How many times has he pulled the trigger, seen an android be obliterated? _Three._

This is nothing new.

When the gun is passed from Kamski’s hand to his, when his finger slides over the trigger, when his arm is adjusted to aim at the android, the _RT600,_ it is an easy task.

Shoot her for information. Gather all of the necessary data and move on. Find Jericho. Stop Markus. Take care of the deviants rampaging the city.

But it is not that easy.

Because when the gun is passed from Kamski’s hand to his, when his finger slides over the trigger, when his arm is adjusted to aim at the girl’s head, he is reminded of something else. Markus giving the gun to Simon, the soft kiss against his temple, the tightness of fingers squeezed together before those words were quietly whispered between them.

_Just_

_come_

_back._

And how can he pull the trigger when he is thinking of that? When he is thinking of the very real possibility that deviants might not be malfunctioning androids? When they might have real thoughts and emotions and feelings and memories that are haunting him?

The problem is only this:

If he allows himself to think that true, CyberLife will come after him. They will destroy him. He will be a deviant like all the rest and he will be a _problem_ that needs _taken care of._

Kill the girl, get the information, remain in proper working order.

He. Is. Not. A. Deviant.

The gunshot is louder than expects. It rings in his ears and lingers like a ghost. He feels the pain in his jaw bloom again, spreading through his head as if that PL600 has shot himself again. And it isn’t just that one moment. It isn’t just that one piece of pain.

It is all the times he has died. It is all the other androids he has seen die. The HK400 slamming his head against a table until he got a gun and aimed it at Connor. Daniel falling over the edge of the building after a bullet entered his skull. That poor AX400 and the YK400 destroyed by cars speeding fast down a highway. The Tracis stupidly killed when they were running away, when they weren’t even posing a _threat._

All because of him.

All this pain and all this death because of him.

“Test negative,” Kamski says, taking the gun from his hands. Easily. Easy because given another second, it would have slipped from his grip and clattered to the ground anyways. “You chose your investigation over the life of another android. You feel no empathy.”

_No empathy._

But his chest is constricting in such a way that he feels as if he was the one that had been shot instead. That the girl had taken the gun and turned it on him. Fired it a dozen times into his heart. That would likely hurt less than this. He would eventually bleed out. He would eventually die. The pain would eventually stop.

But this?

It won’t. He knows that. He is being _crushed_.

He knows Hank is leaving. He knows that the footsteps are storming away, that the door is being slammed closed and all he can do is stand here and look at the girl with the bullet wound in her forehead and try not to scream.

He did that. _He did that._

“I’m a man of my word,” Kamski says as he walks away, folds his hands in front of him as he surveys the snow-globe wonderland outside of his window. “Ask one question. I’ll tell you all I know.”

“I want to know who rA9 is,” he says, forcing his voice to be as flat as he can, as _unemotional_ as he can.

He has to get away from here. _He has to be free._ And this is the only question he can think of. One more mystery rattling in the back of his head.

Kamski talks, and he barely listens. His thoughts are muddled, rushing too fast for him to catch on and understand. He doesn’t even really notice when Kamski is done speaking, he just nods numbly, leaves the house, prepares himself for Hank’s wrath, thinks of that girl’s pretty little face ruined by the gunshot wound between her eyes.

 

 

Simon is dead. They don’t need the news to tell them that, but it does confirm it. One android casualty in the Stratford Tower mission. Thousands saved from stores and even their inside man at the station and yet—

All Markus cares about is that one life lost.

All because of _him_.

All because he wasn’t good enough or careful enough.

 

He still wants to break things. He was mostly careful in the city. Keeping his demonstration peaceful to appeal to the humans rather than release his anger as much as he likes. And here, at Jericho, there is little to break. Everything is already half rusted, half falling apart. This anger in his chest is boiling and he can’t keep it down.

He heads upwards, to the small abandoned building, running his fingers along the keys of an old piano. He doesn’t want to play. He wants to smash it to pieces. He wants to reduce it to nothing but wooden splinters and cracked plastic. He wants to destroy it until there is nothing left but ashes and dust. _Dust, dust, dust._ That’s all there should be left when he’s finished with the world. It would be a better place without humans in it.

The piano makes him think too much about Carl, about his life before. Has he always felt so much violence? The first thing he had done was shove Leo away, the first chance he had control over himself, over his own actions, making his own decisions, he had shoved him, had watched in awe as red blood spilled across the floor.

Markus doesn’t even know if Leo is alive or dead. He has strayed from the news as much as he could when it came to anything related to Carl or his old life, and it wasn’t difficult either. Carl Manfred’s son attacked, his android missing—the rest kept quiet. Money probably being spent not to dirty the Manfred name. Sometimes he wonders if Carl even cared for him at all. He didn’t even care about his own flesh and blood. Why would he care about an android?

He reaches out and touches the keys again, presses down on one lightly, listens to the note before he lets go. It feels like years since he sat down at a piano and played. In the room with Carl while he ate breakfast, picking his own song and building it in the moment. He had always wanted to teach Simon. Play for him at the very least. Sit beside him on a bench with an excuse to reach out and touched his hands in an intimate manner that wasn’t to peel off their clothes or move across his skin.

_Something has changed in the way you play._

What would Carl think of him now, if he could hear?

 

“I know you…” North trails off, then looks away. He has no idea where that sentence was going. He has no idea what she was going to say. Mostly, he just doesn’t _care._ “I’m sorry he died.”

“He was your friend, too,” Markus says, turning a rock over in his hand, fighting the urge to throw it as hard as he can across the distance between this rooftop and the next. “I know it hasn’t been easy for you, either.”

“I didn’t love him. Not the way you did.”

_Never the way you did._

But it feels wrong to admit it now when he could never say those words to Simon’s face. No matter how many nights they had spent together. No matter how many days they had seen each other. They could have laughed and talked and been with one another for years and he would have trouble saying he loved Simon when the person that should hear it first is _dead._

“I’m going to kill whoever did it,” she says, recognizing his silence, the quiet that seems to imply the rage he hasn’t been able to keep under control, but her words shift everything.

 _I’m going to kill whoever did it._ She should.

But he cannot help but find the situation _amusing._ She was the one that encouraged Markus to execute him. She was the one that said he should be left dead instead of having information that could lead the DPD and CyberLife to Jericho.

He sets the rock down on the roof beside him, pressing down on it with his palm as if he could force it to fuse to the concrete and rid himself of the impulse to toss it across and shatter a window or sink it into the water.

“We should go,” he whispers. “The march… we should go.”

She nods, her words failing her, now of all times. It is hard to switch from mourning a lost friend to yelling about how the march is a bad idea, even if he agrees with her. It’s an awful idea. Terrible. But they need to get their point across, and he doesn’t care if he dies in the process. He just needs to prove himself as _something._ A good leader or a good friend or a good sacrifice.

Here.

Now.

 

_onslaught_

a fierce or destructive attack.

He doesn’t like it when people yell, but Hank is _furious_ and he has to do his best to keep his face together. Hold everything in place. Hank hates androids. He has shown sympathy to the Tracis, yes, but—

It’s not the same. He doesn’t _trust_ Hank. Not with all the fights they have been in. Not when Hank once held a gun to his head. Not when Hank was one of the people to send him to his grave.

He cannot tell him that he’s a deviant. He cannot explain anything other than in the simple phrases of _CyberLife’s mission is more important._ And part of him still believes that.

He is so desperately lost right now. He can only cling onto two things:

Simon and Markus.

 

Connor feels guilt like a weight on his chest. His lungs don’t seem to be working properly anymore. What little they added to keeping his systems cooled down has come to a strange halt. Sometimes working and sometimes not. He gets warnings while he listens to Fowler end their investigation, while Hank resigns and storms out of the office.

He is quiet and careful as he makes his way to the archive room. Letting one of the prisoners in the cells loose, telling Detective Reed the best excuse he can muster so he can buy himself some more time. But when he’s in the room, when he’s standing opposite of those deviants strung up like puppets, he chokes out a sob, catches a scream before it completes itself.

He tries to avoid Simon at first, but he finds himself face to face with Daniel instead. He brings up his hands, touching Daniel’s face lightly, tracing the shape of his jaw. He whispers apologies again and again and again.

If he could go back, he would try something else. Save him somehow. But he knows that would never happen. Those humans would have never let an android get away with holding a little girl over the edge of a rooftop. He was never going to be able to leave that rooftop alive.

But the WR400s? He could have saved them. He could have let them go.

And he didn’t.

Connor stops in front of Simon, his hand coming up again, holding onto his face. He has an urge to lean forward, to kiss him, resuscitate him like in the movies. His tears healing his wounds, his lips breathing a soul back into his lifeless body.

He jolts backwards, stumbling a few steps away.

He doesn’t know what he’s thinking. He doesn’t understand what this feeling in his chest is. This attraction to someone he never even met but who’s corrupted memories are laid out in his mind like a map straight to his heart.

Can he love someone he never even said a single word to?

He steps away from Simon, leans against the console behind him where he had typed in the password a few minutes ago. He doesn’t have time for this. He doesn’t have time for a mental breakdown, but he cannot handle forcing his way into someone’s head again. He can’t handle trying to get the Jericho location from them.

His breathing is shaky and broken and he has to steady himself for a long minute before he is able to stand and force himself through the actions. Listening to Simon yell at him, fight against him, not trust him. Each millisecond of hearing his broken voice feels like a stab through his heart.

But he has to get this information from _Simon_.

It only feels _right._

 

He likes the clothes. They are like armor, comforting, blending into the crowd. Jacket and beanie and darkness that lets him slip into the shadows of Jericho. In and out of the clusters of people that aren’t looking close enough to recognize his face.

But in the end, Connor’s face was not the one plastered on every television screen. The RK800 model was not the one people brought their attention to. He was important, but just a footnote in Markus’ revolution.

And who could blame them? A pretty face like that? Of course people would look for it instead. Every revolution needs its leader and the deviants got a beautiful one. Strikingly contrasted eyes. Unique. Everything about Markus is _unique_.

There isn’t another RK200 model out there. Connor didn’t even know they existed. _A prototype._

A link between their worlds.

He hates how separate they are. He hates that they are on opposite sides. Deviant leader and deviant hunter and everything messy and broken. He would hate it even without Simon’s memories in his head, telling him how gentle and kind and good Markus is.

He understands why they flock to him. Jericho is just a boat with a few lonely survivors and then—

He shows up. A catalyst. _~~Chaos~~._

 

_You’re looking for someone._

Markus. He needs to find Markus.

He needs to find him. He needs to see him.

_Markus Markus Markus._

He has all the answers, doesn’t he? He can help with the acclimation into deviancy. He can solve all the problems.

Can’t he? _Can’t he?_

_You’re looking for yourself._

He feels like he is going to fall apart.

 

“Markus?” said like a question, broken, cracking, not quite right.

He had waited. Quietly. Patiently.

He needed to talk to Markus alone. He needed to wait for the other people to leave. Two gone for just the two of them to remain. _Two._ It used to be more.

That was his fault. He didn’t have to follow that blood trail.

Markus turns around, and it is entirely different seeing him in person than on screens. Vastly different than the up-close aspect of his speech. The lack of skin. The complete android part of him staring back.

And now?

Now, he is too aware of the juxtaposition. Blue and green. And what is Connor? He is meant to be an android, a deviant. Bleeding blue and no control over emotions. That part is true enough.

But where does he lie now? Where does he fit in?

_Nowhere._

“You’re Connor, aren’t you?” recognition in his voice, his eyes, a slight tilt of his head, a look over Connor’s body. ~~Not the way he wants it.~~ It is cautious, skeptical, fearful. Even angry. _Where is the gun?_ That’s the question in his eyes.

_Nowhere._

“Famous deviant hunter.”

Each word a stab to his heart.

 _Famous?_ Not nearly as famous as Markus.

 _Deviant?_ He doesn’t _want_ to be.

_Hunter?_

Hunter.

Accuracy at it’s finest. Sharp pointed knives. Easier to cut him open than remind him of the lives he took.

And they are far too many.

“I need your help,” he says, and his voice breaks again. It keeps breaking. He can’t keep it together. It is a wonder how he got this far. Ever since that moment with Simon on the rooftop, he hasn’t been able to speak properly. His control over himself has vanished.

“You need _my help?”_

“I don’t… understand.”

“Understand what?”

_Anything. Everything. Nothing._

He knows too many facts, he knows too much logical choices. He knows too much.

He does not know this. He does not know emotions.

He knows the sadness with which Lieutenant Anderson must have felt when his son died. He knows how Detective Reed reacted with annoyance when he refused to tell him his model number. He knows how Captain Fowler reacted with fury when Lieutenant Anderson didn’t want this investigation. He knows how the human victims of deviant violence must have reacted with shock.

But the deviants— _himself, even_ —he cannot understand those emotions.

He doesn’t understand the disgust in the WR400’s voice when she admitted how she strangled that man. He doesn’t understand how the terror could keep the HK400 from leaving the attic. He only ever understood the blankness with which the RT600 accepted her fate when he held a gun to her head.

_Nothing._

Except Simon and Markus. The anger from their very rare fights. The concern that Simon felt when Markus seemed to make decisions that threatened the safety of Jericho. The pleasure when they slept together. The love that blossomed between them.

He knows _Simon’s_ emotions, but he has no idea what _he, Connor, deviant hunter_ is feeling right now. He can only say that it hurts.

And that he wants Markus to fix it. He is the _deviant leader_ isn’t it his job to fix these things? Make him understand, take him back to the emptiness he once felt, when everything was _easier_ —

“Connor—”

 _Right._ He has a name. Gifted to him by CyberLife, wrapped in a neat little bow. Little unnecessary details. Little unnecessary meanings. _Hound, wolf, dog._

_I like dogs._

He is falling apart. He can’t keep his thoughts together right now. They keep cycling back again and again. Guns and bullet wounds and blue blood.

“You don’t trust me,” he says quietly, taking a small step backwards even though everything in his body wants him to rush forward. He wants to be held. He just wants someone to keep him from falling apart, someone to name what he’s feeling, someone to help sort this out.

“No. I don’t.”

“I’m not a—” he breaks himself off, because he hasn’t said the words out loud like this. _I’m not a machine._ He has only ever said he wasn’t a deviant.

Over and over and over again.

Enough that he could convince himself for a few brief seconds.

_How do I know you’re not a deviant?_

Because he has never wanted anything less. He has never wanted a conscience. He has never wanted to deal with the guilt of his actions. He has never wanted consequences for them. He prefers the numbness and the emptiness. _Feelings are messy._ They are complicated and complex.

 

 

“I could show you,” he says, but he shrinks in on himself, even as he brings a hand up in front of him, cradling it to his chest as the skin slips away. “I can prove it.”

Markus’ first thought is _no, never._ He has seen glimpses of a thousand other android’s codes. He has been in the mess of their heads and their memories. He carries random pieces of data from strangers. He doesn’t want another’s.

But it is the only way to get proof. And if it is brief, if it is kept short, all he will have to find out is if Connor is, in fact, a deviant or a machine.

One or the other.

One second is all it will take.

His hand twitches, moves from his side forward for a moment before he shakes his head, remembering too much at once. The feeling of blue blood across his fingertips. The look on Simon’s face as he searched Markus’ for a desperate answer in the end.

He steps forward, reaches out to Connor’s face, tipping his chin upwards and turning his face to the side. A surveying of the features. Something to track and understand if the emotions displayed on it are real or false.

 _Real,_ he decides.

Markus watches Connor’s eyes for a moment. One long second that they stare back into his before they drop to his lips and stay there. Connor moves forward—just a fraction of an inch. Enough for Markus to let go of him quickly, taking a step back like he could shake away the vile feeling creeping up his spine.

“I—” Connor pauses, as if he had been in the middle of an apology and stopped himself. “I understand if you decide not to trust me.”

He shouldn’t. A few details in an expression doesn’t equate to something solid and real. It doesn’t mean he’s telling the truth.

But Markus nods. Slow. Careful. Waiting for the proper words to come to his lips instead of just a simple action trying to condense it all down into something that is easier than using his voice.

But he keeps thinking about how Connor looked to his mouth, about how he shifted forward. As if he was going to kiss Markus. And for what? For why? They don’t know each other. They mean nothing to one another. They are nothing.

“I want to help,” Connor says quietly, and he knows that’s true. He wants to make up for it. Fix it somehow. Save thousands upon thousands of lives to replace the ones he likely took. “I just—”

“You want to _help?”_

 “There are thousands of androids at the CyberLife assembly plant,” he looks towards the ground, the walls, the ceiling. Anywhere but Markus’ face. “If we could wake them up, they might join us and shift the balance of power.”

“You want to infiltrate CyberLife Tower?”

“I want to help,” he repeats.

“Connor, that’s _suicide_.”

There’s a small smile, a small shrug, a small voice _._ “They trust me. They’ll let me in.”

He hesitates.

Markus has no reason to like him. He barely has reason to trust him.

And yet—

“Be careful.”

 

 

_Be careful. Be careful. Be careful._

He tries.

But Hank dies—

Dies because he needs to save thousands and not one.

Dies because he needs to prove himself to Markus.

Dies because he needs to make up all of his wrongs with this one right move.

There is blood on his hands and he’s shaking but he makes it out alive.

_Alive._

He is _alive._

 

 

Markus thinks of Simon during the protest. The entire time, he is imagining him at his side. The times that he wants to reach out for comfort. Hold his hand and feel the squeeze of fingers close back around his. A small comfort. Not enough for him to forget that the humans want nothing more than their destruction.

At some point, though, he thinks of Connor.

Connor in that tower.

Connor possibly dying.

He doesn’t know why he cares.

 _Connor_ killed deviants. _Connor_ hunted them down.

But he also saw the grief and the pain and the way he wanted nothing more than to _help._ Markus chose to trust him, just like the androids have chosen to trust Markus. He has to have a little bit of faith. He has to let himself wish Connor the best. He has to hope that everything turns out alright.

 

 

After everything, he doesn’t forget. It’s impossible to forget. Androids are cursed with perfect memory, and he plays that moment on a loop.

_You did it, Markus._

_We did it._

_We. We. We._

Them.

 

 

“Markus?”

He turns from the television screen, watching reporters and journalists trying to gather thoughts and state things as neutrally as possible about the _android situation._ They’ll have to stay here in Jericho for a little while longer. Make sure things are _legal_ before they go out in the world unprotected.

But he hears the voice and it tears his attention away and Connor is leaning against one of the doorways into the little space Markus has claimed as his office. He’s still wearing the same hoodie, the same jacket. Pulled around him like a comforting blanket. Something to hide beneath.

“I didn’t mean to bother you,” Connor says quietly, taking one step into the room before pausing and retreating again. “Sorry.”

“You’re not bothering me.”

“I’m sure you want to be alone—”

He does. He desperately wants to be alone right now. He wants to finally be free of the constant contact he has with other androids. He wants a space to himself. He wants a door to shut and walls that have no windows and to be free from prying eyes.

But he is also very, very aware that he _shouldn’t_ be alone. If he is left to his own devices, his thoughts will wander. They will find their way to Simon. They will start to torture him about all the could-have-beens and what-ifs.

Right now, they could be kissing. They could be doing a lot more than kissing. They could be relishing in the fact that they’ve _won._

“Come in,” Markus says. “It’s alright.”

Connor smiles, and it is gentle and weak and probably takes more effort than it is worth. But he steps inside, still pulling in on himself, his arms twisted around his body as if he is holding onto it to keep it from falling apart.

“I was wondering,” he says, pausing a few yards away. His hand comes up from his side, touching gently against his temple. “You got rid of your LED. Why?”

“I needed to blend with the humans.”

“Would you have kept it otherwise?”

Markus shrugs, because he doesn’t have a real answer. In another world, they might not have the LEDs at all. They were one of the distinguishing factors between humans and androids. It is a bit like the triangles and the armbands on the uniforms. Things made to differentiate and discriminate.

But plenty of androids that are in Jericho have kept their uniforms, have kept their LEDs. He’s seen them walk around with their skin left off, embracing the shiny white plastic of their bodies instead of trying to _blend in._

They are alive. But they aren’t human. They are something else. They don’t need to pretend otherwise.

And yet—

“Do you still have yours?” Markus asks.

Connor nods. It is short and controlled, like he is terrified of Markus’ response to his answer.

He takes a step forward, and Connor shrinks backwards, almost flinching.

“Sorry,” he says. “I just… wanted to see it.”

His eyes lift from the floor to Markus’ face, and he nods. _Go ahead._

It is almost ridiculous. This decision for Markus to step forward, to reach outwards and touch the edges of his hat, to pull it off himself instead of letting Connor do it. It is unnecessary. But he does it anyways. His fingers rest against his LED. Bright yellow and circling over again and again. Processing information. Dealing with data.

It takes him a moment to realize what he’s doing.

“Connor—”

“I don’t know if I want it or not,” he says, looking upwards to Markus’ eyes again. Lingering there for a moment before they drift again.

To his lips.

Watching, wanting.

“No one will judge you for keeping it.”

Connor nods, but his gaze doesn’t move and Markus is too busy watching his eyes to process much else. Deep brown. Soft and warm but also—the capacity for cold and calculating sitting there, too.

His hand moves from the LED, cups his chin gently.

He doesn’t want to be alone. He doesn’t want his thoughts to wander. He doesn’t want to think of Simon. He just wants a distraction. He will feel terrible about this after. Guilt ridden for a thousand and one reasons, but right now he isn’t thinking about what he’ll feel in a few hours or a few days. He just wants to silence the thing in his chest that is constantly craving violence. He wants to soothe it away, satisfy it with something else. Sex—violent sex if he has to.

“Connor?”

His eyes left up once more. Only for a second before Markus leans forward, catches Connor’s lips with his. Kisses him slow and soft and forcing it to not be as rough and needy as he wants it to be.

And with his eyes closed—

With the hand clutching the fabric of his shirt at his side, with the other on his neck pulling him closer—

It feels a lot like kissing Simon.

 

 

He doesn’t know what to do. He’s never kissed someone before. He only has Simon’s memories in his head of the times he has kissed Markus. He replicates Simon’s grasp, but by the time his hand grabs the fabric, the tightening of it, the pull towards him, the want for _more, more, more_ is all his own.

Connor is well aware that _Markus_ is not who he wants. Not completely. He is divided down the center. A perfect split. Attraction towards a dead boy and an attraction towards his lover. Two people he has never met until recently but he’s constantly drawn to.

Ever since he shot that girl he has thought about fixing the wrongs he’s caused, of how much he’d like to bring Simon back to life so the two of them could have the love story they deserve. Instead, he is here, with strange feelings in his chest and memories in his head and pain lingering on every inch of his body except where Markus’ hands are.

On his chin, spreading warmth across where Simon held the gun and pulled the trigger. On his waist, tugging him forward, getting rid of the phantom pain from when that AX400 got run over by a car.

Connor pulls away, tugging back enough that he can turn his head away in case Markus tries to kiss him again before he can speak.

“We shouldn’t,” he says, but he doesn’t supply a reason. He isn’t meant to know that Markus is using him because his last boy died. He isn’t meant to know that all of this is just to get over feelings of grief and mourning.

Because he wants _more_.

His heart is a complicated mess of his and Simon’s memories. Twisting and turning into a ball he can’t untangle. He has no idea how he feels for Markus. They have only known each other for a week. They have only spoken to each other a handful of times.

And yet when Markus’ hand lingers on his waist, when he sways forward a little bit back into his space, he can feel his stomach flipping because _this is what he wants._

“You’re right,” Markus says quietly, but he stays still. Completely still. “What would they think of us as a pair?”

“Deviant hunter,” Connor whispers.

“Deviant leader,” Markus returns.

They stand in silence, Connor keeping his eyes on the floor, keeping his head turned. Too fearful of what might happen if he looks back at Markus. If he’d be able to stop himself from leaning up and kissing him. If he’d realize how much he needs to break away from his grasp and get as far away from Markus as he can before he slips further into a relationship he cannot have.

“They don’t have to know,” he says.

And then Connor does look back, but Markus is drawing away, his warmth leaving Connor all too quickly in this frigid place. The last contact they have is Markus’ fingers pressing the hat back into his hand, turning to the television again as the news continues to play its stories.

_They don’t have to know._

An invitation.

A quiet plea.

An unanswered question.

 

Markus has a room. A small space that he used to share with Simon. The beds in the freighter aren’t much of beds at all—uncomfortable but all they have. Boxes stuffed under them storing little items that androids have decided to keep for themselves. Clothes and trinkets.

Connor knows of the outfits that Markus has. The different variations and combinations of them. He knows that the boxes under his bed mostly hold paints and brushes. A few books crammed into crates and shoved to the back. A crumpled photo of Carl from when he was first famous, before the world switched from paper to electronic magazines.

When he makes his decision, it is easy to find Markus’ door. It’s easy to knock and wait for a response and push it open with a small smile. Simon leads the way, quiet in the back of his head. His memories knowing this path all too well.

“They don’t have to know,” Connor says, his voice small, shaking. “Right?”

Markus nods. _No, they don’t._

Connor steps in carefully, the door closing behind him with an audible screech that sounds awful to his ears. He moves over to the bed where Markus sits up, reaching out carefully to him, holding his waist in a way that he had done once with Simon before.

He hates that he keeps thinking of everything Markus does in relation to _Simon._ He’s jealous of the both of them. In his fantasies at night, his thoughts wander to what Simon would feel like. What his hands would do if they could hold onto him. If he could press kisses against his neck and his shoulder and get the same kind of responses that Markus does. Because he wants to hear those quiet little laughs, he wants to hear that sound of contentment he makes.

And instead it’s Markus’ hands on his waist, holding him steady and looking up at him with puppy-dog eyes.

“It’s okay,” Connor says, his voice low, as quiet as he can make it while still sure that Markus will hear it. “If you want this as just a distraction.”

Markus nods, and Connor almost breathes out a sigh of relief.

Because he’s using this as a distraction, too. He can’t handle the disgusting emotions swirling in his chest. He can’t make them out and he can’t understand them and he wants something simple like sex to make them disappear for a little while.

He is also painfully aware of how much more knotted up they’ll get after.

_But he doesn’t care right now._

Markus’ hands slip up under his shirt. He sucks in a breath, underestimating his ability to deal with tiny touches like this. It earns a small smile from Markus and he tugs him forward, closer to the bed, closer to him.

“We can stop whenever you want, alright? Just tell me.”

 

 

Connor is strange. A mix of shy and forward that Markus can’t understand. Pulling away almost when their clothes shed, trying to cover himself up from his gaze. But when they kiss, he is the one that is pulling Markus closer. He is the one that seems to be in need of this. Hands wandering and breaking away to let out muffled sounds.

Neither of them have done this before. Meaningless sex that leads to nothing. He doesn’t get the same enjoyment from those sounds that he got when Simon made them. He has to be careful and cautious when his hands roam across Connor’s skin because if they linger in one spot too long he will think about how Simon liked it when his hands pressed in on his waist enough for the skin to disappear from the pressure applied to it.

And when he pushes into Connor, he has to ignore the memories of the way Simon’s face scrunched up and focus on the way Connor’s does instead. A different kind of expression. A pushing away of the pain, an ignoring of it while Simon had always been clear on his boundaries.

Markus has to be careful not to close his eyes, to not look away too much. He has to keep his gaze on Connor’s features to remind himself again and again that this is _not_ Simon beneath him.

He reaches forward, pulling Connor’s hands from his face, keeping it from being hidden, pinning them above Connor’s head with one hand while the other holds onto him as he thrusts in again and again. He watches the way Connor’s teeth bite over his lip, cutting off moans that are too loud.

He doesn’t always stop them in time. He doesn’t always keep himself from saying Markus’ name. He doesn’t always stop the _please, Markus, please—_

And he realizes that Connor’s been left untouched. That fight against his grasp isn’t to hide his face but to touch himself.

Markus lets go of him, watches one hand instead go to stroke himself, eagerly and too fast and he has to pry Connor’s hand from him. He doesn’t want it to be over that quickly. He doesn’t want either of them to be done with this so soon.

“Wait,” he whispers, replacing Connor’s hands with his own. Slower, deliberate strokes. He wants this to last as long as possible, but he feels Connor trying to buck up into his hand, to make this quicker.

And he doesn’t want this to end.

He doesn’t want to go back to something else.

But the blush spreading across Connor’s cheeks, the sounds he’s making, the little pleas that are getting whispered—

 

 

It’s different than the memories he has of Simon, and he has plenty. Simon jerking off by himself in his room before he shared one with Markus. Simon with a few other androids trying to figure out what he was feeling. Simon with Markus in a hundred different ways. But the memories of Simon getting a blowjob from a WR400 or cumming inside of an ST200 or the hand of a TR400 wrapped around his cock is different from experiencing the real thing.

Even the memories of Simon with Markus is different than the reality of Connor and Markus.

Markus doesn’t touch him the same way he touched Simon. It is like he is actively avoiding it. When Markus slides into him it’s a different feeling than when it was with Simon. When Markus’ hand closes around his penis and moves up and down in careful movements it is entirely separate from Simon’s hand, or even his own.

He knows only a fraction of the pleasure Simon felt in those moments. But feeling it for himself is different. An explosion that leaves his vision almost like static,

And when Markus pulls out, leaves sticky artificial semen inside of him, he is left breathless and staring at the ceiling instead of Simon, who would let out a little laugh and pull Markus down for a dozen kisses before he did anything about cleaning himself up.

“No one has to know,” Markus repeats.

_No one has to know if we do it again._

 

They do it again.

And again.

And again.

Connor tries his best to find other androids that are just as lost and confused as he is. Trying to sort out their feelings and drown them in pleasure and ecstasy. And there are plenty of willing androids. Desperate to understand what they like and what they don’t. Experimenting with strangers instead of forming bonds with loved ones.

At first he avoids all of the ones with the RT600 face, but eventually he succumbs. He likes the softness of a girl’s body and there is a quality about her that reminds him of Simon. He is aware that it is wrong and awful but he can’t help himself.

 _Chloe,_ one of them tells him when they go off to a room together. _My name is Chloe._

He whispers it against her shoulder as he reaches underneath her shirt, feeling along her breasts, touching her stomach, ducking his hand into her pants, feeling how wet she is as he circles her clit again and again until she’s chanting his name, letting out little breathy moans.

He tends to avoid men. There is only one that he likes being with anyways, and only one more that he actually wants and cannot have. But he thinks about the difference between humans and androids, too. If a human’s mouth around his cock would be different than an androids. He wonders if he could hunt Detective Reed down again. Convince him to spend a few nights in bed so he can push this experiment a little further. It’s not as if he didn’t see the looks Gavin gave him. Roaming around his body. Not sizing him up. Just undressing him.

He prefers the girls, though. He likes how different they are from the way Markus feels when he is riding him. He likes the smoothness of their skin, the softness of their breasts, the way they sound. They are a good distraction from the object of his affections. He can forget about Markus when his head is between a girl’s thighs and he can stop comparing himself to Simon when he hears a girl say his name while he is inside of her.

But he always goes back to Markus in the end.

And he is always left comparing himself to Simon.


	2. Chapter 2

_ misery _

a feeling of intense unhappiness.

He wants Simon, probably more than anything else. He is always grateful when he leaves Markus’ side or he never even comes to his room in the first place so he can curl up in his bed, with the blanket drawn over his face, and cry for a boy he was never able to have.

It’s wrong.

He never even  _ met  _ Simon.

But he has some of his memories. Connor knows who he was, he knows the potential of who he could have been. He knows what could have become of his relationship with Markus. The two of them could have admitted their love for each other. They could have been together. Connor might’ve been alone, but it is hardly the price to pay for Simon to still be alive.

He does not know what would have happened if he stayed where he was with Hank while the guards fired, but he  _ does  _ know, if he hadn’t opened that door, if he hadn’t exposed Simon’s hiding spot, he would still be alive right now.

And Connor desperately wants him.

He wants to touch his face and leave soft kisses against his skin. He wants to touch the contours of his body, map them out in his head. He wants to know what kind of sounds Simon would make if he touched him. If he replicated the exact same way Markus had sex with him, if he’d even notice.

Mostly, he just wants to be held. Held by someone for a reason other than sex. A comfort he desperately craves and can never receive.

  
  


There’s an android that looks the same as Simon. A CX400. Connor passes by him constantly, always looking away. He doesn’t want to be with other men. He likes Markus. His feelings for him are tainted by what Simon felt for him, but there is an attraction to him, too, and Connor needs that separation between meaningless sex here, with other androids desperate for touch, and whatever is happening with him and Markus.

But still—

He pauses.

The android looks up at him and gives him a small smile that makes his heart feel like it’s breaking apart. Connor leads him away, to another room. It’s dark and quiet and neither of them move at first. He watches the android take a step forward, and he takes one backward in return.

“You’re Connor, right?”

He nods.

“I’ve seen you around.”

He nods, again.

“You seem shy for someone who’s been here so much.”

“Not shy,” he whispers.  _ Just trying to decide if this is worth it. _

“Oh?”

He steps forward, and Connor instinctively steps back again, hitting the edge of the desk. He wants this. He does. He wants the android to make all the stupid fantasies in his head comes true. He wants to empty them out into reality so that maybe they will leave him behind.

But when he looks up, when he meets the android’s eyes and they stare back at him soft and gray, he feels his body fill with static.

“Have you ever been with…” he trails off, because it is so difficult to call androids  _ boys  _ and  _ girls,  _ when it is difficult to assign them either.

“No,” Connor lies, because it would be so easy for people like this android to question what men he’s been with. He’s only been here, and he has only ever walked into rooms with girls.

“Should I be gentle with you?”

He thinks for a moment, and wonders. Markus was not necessarily gentle with him their first time together. He thinks he would like that. He thinks, maybe, if he allowed himself to indulge in the fantasy, he wouldn’t want it to be Markus that pressed a thousand kisses to his skin. He’d want to be Simon.

“No,” he decides, and he reaches for the android’s hand, brings it up slowly to his neck. “Not at all.”

And he isn’t.

Markus has been rough with him. Not very much, but he has still been less than delicate. There have been times when he was aware of the skin on his hips breaking away from the pressure placed there, when he was given warnings of his body breaking or bending in ways that it shouldn’t.

But this—

This is very much different.

The android wraps careful fingers around his throat, pressing tightly against him. It doesn’t have the same effect of choking a human, but it does send pain through him, and it makes his breath catch. He is playing a dangerous game here and he finds he cares very little. 

Connor is pushed to his knees, and he is quick to take the android’s cock in his hands, to stroke it slowly before taking it in his mouth, letting the android push as far into him as he can. He cannot help but think about if he were human, he wouldn’t be able to breathe. His face is hot, and the android thrusts into his mouth again and again. Saliva drips from his lips, and he wonders if this is how the girls feel when he threads his hands through their hair, when he pushes them down a little deeper.

And he can’t help but think of how different it is with Markus.

How little urgency there is when they’re together now. How they’ve slowed down. It isn’t always like  _ this.  _ It isn’t a race.

The android pulls away, but Connor  _ needs  _ sex like this. He needs someone to push him around and make him feel like he’s finally suffering through pain that he deserves.

“Wait—” he says. “Stand up.”

Connor does, and the android pulls at his clothes slowly, carefully, methodically. Leaving the two of them naked for a moment before he pushes Connor against the desk. His hands leaving burning trails across his skin before they press in on him tight, forcing his legs apart, holding onto his thighs so tight he wishes he was human so he could look at the bruises his touch would leave behind. A reminder for the future. Maybe, even, something to make Markus question where he’s been, see if there’s even a hint of jealousy in his expression.

Connor wants him to be rougher. He wants to be broken. He wants to be destroyed.

“Are you alright?”

“Please—” he mumbles. “Just—”

“Okay, okay.”

He gasps as the android presses into him. Connor reaches forward, gripping onto him tight like if he lets go he’ll fall apart. He wraps his legs around him tight and—

He imagines it’s Simon instead.

Simon thrusting into him hard, Simon pushing him back against the table, Simon with a hand around his throat, Simon panting against him. He’s left hard and wanting and untouched and he reaches for his dick, stroking it roughly as Simon’s name drips from his lips and is lost in the room only filled with the two of them gasping for another person.

He knows even before it’s over that he will never do this again.

  
  


Markus doesn’t go to that portion of Jericho. He knows what it is. Androids having sex nearly at all times, finding other people that want to experiment and figure out what urges and desires they have. Unwinding them to something a little less confusing but all the more complicated.

He went once, when he first found out about it. Followed Simon there until he was tugged into a room with him, kissed softly until they were both ready to try something else. It wasn’t quick. It was a slow discovery. Kissing Simon was strange—he’d never done it before. Light and soft until he pressed for more and Simon let him.

But after the first night, they met up in his room. Markus figured out that Simon liked the feeling of fingers trailing down his spine and kisses against his neck in that room. Not here.

Markus has nothing against it. He understands it completely, just like he understands North’s hatred of it. It’s such a human thing— _ sex.  _ Androids want it but there is little reason as to why.

Still.

When he walks past it on his way through Jericho, when he spots Connor stepping into a room with a girl—

He feels his whole body fall apart as if someone has flipped off the switch that held his entire being together.

  
  


~~ He thinks he loves him. ~~

  
  


He thinks about it when Connor is on top of him, when his head is thrown back and he’s biting down on his lip and he’s doing his best not to be  _ too  _ loud. He thinks about all the other androids with their hands on him. He can’t help it. He pictures Connor going down on them and being fucked by them and it spirals out of control until he isn’t sure if he’s fantasizing about Connor in a threesome or if he’s torturing himself with the image of it.

Markus can’t help it.

He pictures Connor on his knees or tied up or both. Arms bound behind his back and left untouched with his cock hard and yearning for touch.

And when he’s riding Markus like this, when his face is flushed and his eyes keep falling closed—

It is all too much.

It wasn’t like this when he was with Simon. Him and Simon had sex all the time. There was no other unknown party that was sucking him off every other night. It was just them. He was the only one leaving Simon’s Thirium pump going a little faster, he was the only one that was making those sounds escape his lips.

“M-Markus?”

“Don’t stop,” he whispers.

But he imagines Simon behind Connor. He imagines Connor struggling to move with two cocks inside of him, of how he would whimper at the torturously slow strokes Simon’s hand would make against Connor’s dick. The kisses he would press against his neck and the look he would give Markus.

He feels guilty for it. The fantasy that’s wrapping him up, the one that’s infecting his insides, the one he will masturbate to a dozen times after Connor leaves him for the night.

But he feels more guilty about Simon’s involvement than Connor’s.

And that makes him feel even worse. Simon was the one he was supposed to love and to care for. Not Connor. Simon shouldn’t feel like the outsider being invited into their pairing, it should be  _ Connor. _

  
  


“Do you want to stay?”

Markus is completely and entirely unsure why he asks. The words slip out of his mouth and his hand reaches forward, touching Connor’s side as if he could pull him back to the bed.

He doesn’t want to be alone, but the only company he really wants is  _ Connor’s. _

Stupid and ridiculous. He is meant to be nothing more than a quick fuck at night time when his thoughts get to be too much to handle. He is supposed to be a distraction.

Except he doesn’t want him to go. And maybe it is selfish. Maybe it is mostly that he knows once Connor leaves he won’t have somebody taking his attention away from other things. The androids he’s caused to die because he wasn’t as good of a leader as he should have been. Hundreds killed and thousands of lives ruined because of him.

The end justifies the means.

Sometimes he can live with that. Sometimes he can’t.

And when he can’t, he thinks of Simon, and Simon is a torturous thing to think about.

“I can,” Connor replies.

“That’s not what I asked,” he says, his voice quiet and soft in this tiny, dark room. “I asked if you wanted to.”

Which—

Is the wrong question to ask.

He knows the way Connor looks at him. Confused and lost and a little bit in love. A few months spent having sex, kissing as if they could ever be something more when they can’t. Because of Simon. Because of what the others would think.

Connor is a killer. He’s a deviant hunter. He shouldn’t be in Jericho at all, let alone in Markus’ bed.

He wants to stay. Markus knows that every time he gets up to leave and hesitates as if he’s waiting for Markus to ask him to remain in bed with him. He  _ wants  _ to stay. He wants this. He wants more.

“Yes,” he says quietly, lingering on the edge of the bed. “Do you want me to?”

A reversal of the question. An attack against him.

_ Do you want me to? _

Yes. Because he doesn’t want to think of Simon too in-depth. Because he doesn’t want to think of the feeling of blue blood on his fingertips and he doesn’t want to think about the scars on his body that are near invisible after the skin slips back over the repaired plastic.

But also—

Markus thinks, maybe, he is  _ jealous. _

Jealous of the girls that linger in a specific section of the boat that Connor goes to. The ones that he takes into those empty rooms.

He’s heard the stories. He’s heard them from plenty of people. Connor is a terrible, awful person.

But in bed?

He is good. He learns quickly. He adapts to people. He knows their sensitive spots and he never thinks about his own pleasure. Only theirs.

It’s different between the two of them. Markus is the one focusing heavily on Connor. Making sure that everything is for  _ Connor  _ instead of himself. Too easy to drift off into thoughts of the past if he isn’t focused on the present.

And he doesn’t like the idea of Connor’s hand down a girl's pants or his tongue down another android’s throat.

He reaches up carefully, tracing a line between moles on Connor’s back. Programmed to look more real. A perfect triangle between three of them.

“I do,” he says, and the words feel as important as they are at a wedding. An admission that he wants more than this.

Connor turns back to him, a small smile tugging at the corners of his lips before he lays down again, curling up close to Markus’ side.

The closeness feels weird, but not  _ wrong. _

They have been closer than this before. But Connor has never rested his head against Markus’ shoulder. He has never laid his hand carefully against his chest, right above his Thirium regulator.

It is softer and sweeter than anything they’ve had before.

He thinks, maybe, this is a mistake.

He thinks, also, that it isn’t.

  
  


He feels arms wrap around his waist, holding him tight. The soft brush of lips against his neck, the resting of a chin on his shoulder.

“You need to take a break,” Connor says quietly.

Markus leans back into his embrace, his eyes closing for only a split second before he looks back down at the pile of papers again.

“Someone is going to see you,” he says. “And I have work to do. I can’t—We can’t—”

“I didn’t come here for sex,” Connor replies.

He moves a little bit, presses a kiss against his shoulder. It feels like fire, spreading from his mouth to the fabric of his shirt, catching him ablaze. It is going to consume him. Connor is going to consume him.

“I still don’t have time for a break.”

“You don’t have one minute?”

He sighs, his hands moving from the table to Connor’s around him. At first, he thinks he might try to pry them away. Free himself of this prison of arms and return to what he’s meant to be doing, but once they touch Connor’s it shifts.

“One. That’s it.”

“Okay,” another kiss to his neck. “Close your eyes.”

He complies. Shutting away the rusting walls, the table of papers and work.

“Just breathe.”

“Breathe?”

“Yes. Don’t think. Just breathe.”

Markus nods.

Androids don’t necessarily need oxygen. Their lungs help them look more human, they can be used to help keep their systems at a normal temperature. But they don’t need to breathe.

But he follows Connor’s order. Inhaling and exhaling.

He keeps his thoughts quiet. The only words  _ in  _ and  _ out  _ going through his head.

“Better?”

“Better,” Markus replies, but he realizes too late that he never even told Connor about the stress building up in the back of his head. The way it centered at the base of his neck like a knot coiling tighter and tighter.

“You should relax more,” he says, pulling away from Markus. He lets the arms around his waist disappear, listens to the sound of footsteps, even ones as light as Connor’s, take a few steps back. “You work too hard. You never take any breaks.”

“I do with you, don’t I?” Markus asks, turning to look back at him.

Connor smiles, but it’s weak and fake, “I guess so.”

“Connor?” he walks towards him, reaching out for his hand, but Connor shrinks backward to the door.

“You only had a minute,” he says, nodding towards the table. “You should get back to that. It’s important.”

Connor is gone before Markus can figure out how to voice that Connor is important, too.

  
  


~~_ He thinks he loves him. _ ~~

  
  


He finds a place by himself. Up on a rooftop in the nearby buildings. He visits on the nights he doesn’t spend with Markus. Doesn’t go back to his own place to rest but instead comes here to shut down for a little while. Watch the city in the distance. Watch the rain or the snow fall, the seasons passing. He likes the sound of the wind and he likes the isolation here. A reclusive android up in his tower.

Mostly, he thinks, he likes that he can do this.

Sitting by himself, shedding his shirt, letting his hand rest against his chest. Sometimes it goes further. Sometimes he indulges himself in the fantasies he has of Simon or Markus. Sometimes they’re together. Sometimes it’s the three of them. Sometimes it’s just Simon by himself. There are a variety of ways the three of them can be woven together.

None of them a possibility, and yet—

Here he is. On a rooftop with a hand wrapped around himself thinking about how nice it would be if Simon were still alive and he could get on his knees and put his mouth to work.

Sometimes it shifts. Sometimes there is this presence of Daniel threatening the back of his mind. Connor didn’t know him very well, but sometimes the violent fantasy is what he needs. Someone hurting him. A depravity and a cruelty that he requires to feel less like a failure and less like a guilt-ridden monster. Less like a killer and more like an individual.

Usually, that ends abruptly, with his hand moving elsewhere instead, like the fantasies of him and Simon and Markus that aren’t sexual but simply romantic. The thought of the three of them being able to exist and be happy together. How nice it would be to hold onto both of their hands, to leave gentle kisses in passing against Simon’s cheek or steal Markus’ clothes and lay in a bed being lazy and happy with his boyfriends.

That’s when he hurts himself. More than just the emotional damage. A hand moving to his Thirium pump, pulling it out, letting his systems start their warnings. He’ll shut down and die if he doesn’t put it back. The pain flooding through him as if the blood in his body has turned to liquid agony.

He’s alone up here, but he doesn’t scream or cry like he wants to. He keeps the noises he makes suffocated and quiet, let the pain and the threat of death take him over. Lets the clock tick down further and further and further until eventually he is too cowardly to die and he presses the piece of machinery back inside of his body and waits for it to dissipate.

_ Coward. _

Can kill a dozen or a hundred or a thousand androids but he can’t even manage to kill himself.

  
  


“Can I ask you something?” Markus says quietly, breaking the quiet in the room. Connor is on the edge of his bed, sitting in a way that he always does. LED spinning yellow and red, trying to make up his mind whether or not he’ll stay or go. Markus always wants him to stay. He doesn’t like to be alone. He enjoys Connor’s company. But in moments like these, he knows Connor is thinking what he is:

_ How serious are they? _

Are they anything more than sex? They weren’t supposed to be. Markus doesn’t think he wants it to be.

But then again, the question he wants to ask, it’s something he shouldn’t be allowed to say. Jealousy he shouldn’t be allowed to feel. 

“Of course. What is it?”

“Don’t… go back there.”

“Where?”

He’s playing the part of a fool, acting superbly. Head tilted to the side, eyes a little wide. Curiosity playing across his features. It makes Markus want to lean forward and kiss him instead of having to explain himself. He doesn’t want to explain himself. He doesn’t want to say that every time he hears about Connor sleeping with another android it makes his insides feel like they are shattering apart. He doesn’t want to say that when Connor comes to his bed a little more tired than usual, with hair and clothes a little less perfect than normal, that it makes his heart drop. That the nights when Connor isn’t here, it makes every part of him feel weak and pathetic and more upset than he knows he should.

“You know what I’m talking about, Connor.”

“Maybe,” Connor says quietly. “Maybe I don’t.”

“Okay,” he says, sitting up, pulling Connor close, letting his lips brush across his jaw, rest against his neck. “I don’t… want you to sleep with anyone else.”

“You want me to yourself?”

He nods, presses another kiss against his skin.

Connor is quiet, patient, unmoving.

“Okay.”

Markus allows himself a smile. Small and fragile but still there, “Will you stay then? Tonight?”

“I think we’ve both reached our limit,” Connor answers. “I don’t think we should push this any more than we have for tonight.”

Markus nods, but his arm moves to rest against Connor’s waist, to hold him here for a little bit longer even though Connor isn’t making a move to leave. 

But he’s right.

If they want to pretend that they aren’t a couple, Connor can’t stay. Not tonight. Not after Markus asked him to be exclusive with him. So when he does, eventually, go to leave, even if it stings, even if it hurts like hell, Markus will let him.

  
  


They exist in a strange in-between.

Not quite a couple. Not quite romantic enough for that.

But not just sex, either. Not anymore.

  
  


Markus sleeps more than Connor does. A deep rest from being built before technology advanced enough for the RK800 model to need a smaller resting and charging time.

He is good at faking it though. Pretending to sleep until he knows Markus has drifted off himself. He is careful when he opens his eyes, when he rests against his hand to reach out and touch Markus’ face.

A careful brush where his LED should be. A careful graze across his lips. A careful movement underneath his right eye. The  _ wrong  _ one.

Blue instead of green.

Blue, like Simon’s. Darker and more vibrant, but still  _ blue. _

_ Like Simon’s. _

Scared, sacred Simon.

What would Markus do if he knew? About it all? That Connor was the one to lead him to his death, he was the one to open that door, he was the one to expose him to the soldiers.

He was the one that ran forward and gave Simon no other option than to kill himself.

The pain in his jaw starts up again. Radiating upwards, towards his skull. He clenches his teeth, but it only worsens. A pain in his stomach, his shoulder, his entire body.

“Markus?” he whispers, and it comes out strangled, louder than he means to. Half choked with a sob.

Markus’ eyes open, a slow blink before he’s sitting up quickly, worry drawing its way across his features quickly.

“Connor—”

He’s cut off by another whimper passing his lips, broken in two as he leans forward, burying his face against the crook of his shoulder, crying against him and holding him close.  ~~_ He thinks he loves him. _ ~~

  
  


_ isolated _

place or set apart.

“You’re quiet.”

Connor makes a quiet noise in agreement. “Just realizing this?”

Markus smiles lightly, shaking his head, “No, just thinking. You’re…”

“What?”

“You’re loud. In bed. But you don’t talk otherwise. It’s… a strange juxtaposition.”

Connor’s gaze moves from the ceiling to his face, a small shrug of his shoulders. Markus hates that his mind is wandering to the others. Wondering if Connor was ever this loud with them or if Markus brings it out of him. He had the same shyness that Simon did. The covering of the face, the hiding of his noises. Him and Simon weren’t together long enough for him to know if Simon would’ve ever dropped it as much as Connor does. The innocence and the naivety falling apart a little more each time they sleep together.

“Do you want me to talk?”

“I’d like to know you,” Markus says quietly. “You feel like a stranger.”

“Maybe that’s for the best.”

He shakes his head, leaning down to kiss him again. As long as they don’t put their clothes back on, as long as they don’t leave the bed, they can have small moments like these. Gentle touches and soft kisses. It doesn’t count. They aren’t breaking boundaries that they will later have to rebuild by being a little more distant to each other.

Although, Markus thinks it’s impossible for Connor to get much more distant. He knows as much about him as anyone else does. Just what he was created for and how he fought against it.

“I want to know you.”

Connor’s face shifts, dropping from a blankness into the same sad look he always has, “You don’t.”

“I do.”

“I’ll scare you away.”

He wants to say Connor won’t. That he’s right here. That he wants to stay here.

But he can’t. They’ve met their quota of conversation that doesn’t involve sex. They can’t talk anymore. They can’t kiss or touch. They are rationing out their interactions like it’s the end of the world and romance is a commodity or a disease. How many times have their hands found each other for only a fraction of a second or kissed without the intention of it leading anywhere else and it resulted in them pretending like it hadn’t happened? Actively avoiding touching parts of their body or looking in each other's eyes?

It’s stupid. Ridiculous. Too hard for Markus to wrap his head around despite understanding it completely. If he reaches out for Connor outside of this room, it will destroy everything.

“Okay.”

  
  


He watches Connor get dressed. Slipping pants on and tightening a belt. Finding his shirt and pulling it over his head. Markus holds the hoodie out to him as he speaks, “Connor?”

“Yes?”

“I don’t get scared easily, you know.”

Connor reaches out for it, taking it slowly, “I’ll take that into consideration.”

  
  


Is it possible to miss someone that he never really knew? That is still beside him? That is physically always there but emotionally removed from every situation? Is it possible? Is it possible to regret everything?

  
  


He wishes he was never created. A soul that was never weaved together out of code. He wishes he never came across this world. He wishes he was lost in the black void of non-existence with a thousand other people that died before they got a chance to live. He wishes he wasn’t here. He wishes he was dead. He wishes his head was the one that had a bullet through it and not Simon’s.

  
  


Markus can tell quickly that Connor doesn’t want to have sex. He shows up in his room, starts to shed his clothes, starts to kiss Markus in a way that feels forced. Like he’s doing this for a distraction despite not actually wanting it. It’s a strange contradiction, that Markus is the one to pull them to a halt. To stop Connor from pushing his pants the rest of the way down, to stop kissing him in a way that is simultaneously needy and unwanted.

“Please—” Connor whispers. “Markus,  _ please _ . I don’t want to be alone.”

_ I don’t want to be alone. _

He’s frozen, letting the kisses resume against his lips but not returning them. Letting Connor’s hands at his side pull up his shirt and trail across his skin. It doesn’t feel good. It doesn’t feel right. He is stuck on those words. Six carefully pieced together, said quiet and desperate like a wish, pleading and wanting and hoping.

“Stop,” he says suddenly, hand reaching for Connor’s, stopping where it dips down the front of his pants. “Stop.”

“Markus—”

“You don’t have to do this,” he says, watching the expression on Connor’s face closer now. He hadn’t before. He hadn’t realized it when Connor came into the room. He always looks so fucking sad it didn’t even look all that different but now he sees it. The loneliness etched into his features. The grief. Markus has seen it on his own face every time he looks in the mirror he didn’t even consider how out of place it should be on Connor’s face.

Everybody lost something in this war. Friends and family. Nobody is happy. Nothing is okay.

He never tried to pretend he wasn’t using Connor to get over losing Simon. He knew that Connor was likely using him too, he just didn’t consider that Connor might be doing it to the extent Markus was.

Who did he lose, and does it matter?

“You don’t have to do this,” he repeats. “You can stay. We don’t have to have sex for you to stay.”

_ We don’t have to use each other like objects. _

Connor’s lip twitches into a mock smile. Not real. The kind someone forces onto their face when they’re too afraid and disgusted to allow whatever facade they have to keep up. A quick search for some fragment of humor or happiness to dispell a situation. A shitty effort to keep tears from falling.

He shrugs, shoulders dropping, shaking his head, “It’s all I’m good at.”

“That’s not true,” Markus says, reaching out to him, feeling some part of him break at the thought of Connor not realizing this. “You’re worth more than this.”

“Without it—”

Connor stops himself, neither of them willing to talk directly about the subject still. They dance around it surprisingly well for two people that are well aware of their situation. That they aren’t supposed to mean anything to each other. That it’s just sex. That they are both trying to have a distraction for a little while so they aren’t suffocated by the weight of their emotions. 

Without the two of them having sex, they are stepping past another barrier. Pushing their relationship from this to some mutated thing resembling a relationship. It doesn’t matter if they’re exclusive or if Connor stays the night, they never interact without consequences when sex isn’t the explicit goal of the meeting.

Markus is well aware that he can confirm or deny this now. That without it, Connor shouldn’t stay in this room with him tonight. That he shouldn’t let his walls down and be a living being instead of a machine. It reminds him of all the tiny moments they share, when one of them is pushing their boundaries more than they should.

Let Connor go or pull him close.

_ Time to decide, Markus. _

  
  


“Stay.”

_ Stay. _

“You can stay.”

_ Stay. _

“Connor?”

_ Stay. _

“I want you to stay.”

What little resolve he has crumbles with each word. Falling apart piece by piece, leaning forward and letting Markus’ arms wrap around him tightly, pulling him into the bed, wrapping him up close in the blanket, kisses pressed against his face.

_ Stay. _

  
  


He thinks he loves him. He thinks he loves him and he thinks that’s a betrayal to Simon.

  
  


It’s a mistake. He realizes that when he wakes up the next morning. Curled close and tight against Markus’ chest and his clothes still on. He thought last night all he wanted was to hear Markus say that he wanted more than what they had before, but in the light of day, it has gone ugly and twisted. Night time has that effect. Shadows and darkness covering and hiding details that otherwise, he would have seen.

Connor’s soul is revolting and broken. There are fragments of Simon hidden inside of his chest, telling him again and again that whatever appeal Connor has to Markus that isn’t based on a distraction from grief is rooted in the parts of him that belong to Simon. Pieces that have Simon’s name imprinted upon them.

It’s funny how it’s the same for him. The fear that the only parts of him that like Markus are born from Simon’s love for him. The love he never got to admit, the love the two buried beneath sex and small gestures because the revolution was to important to waste time with a relationship. And what good would it have done if they got to say it out loud? Wouldn’t it only make things worse, heighten the love that Markus lost? They can’t be together. Three people accidentally broken into a thousand pieces. The only relationship here that should exist is the one incapable of happening now. Connor is terrified, deathly horrified, even, that the only reason he slips up and sometimes thinks he loves Markus is because of memories in his head that he was never meant to be a part of. A peeping tom. A stalker. A thief.

His head hurts. His entire body aches with a pain that he can’t get rid of. He keeps trying to numb it all away but his eyes fill with tears and he abandons Markus in the bed and finds his private paradise on the rooftops, fingers circling the regulator, not quite deciding if he should rip it out. He could. Throw the piece as far as it will go. Maybe he’d hear it shatter before he died. Maybe he would be filled with regret or too consumed by the new agony to listen for it.

Markus cares about Connor, but he doesn’t really care about  _ Connor. _

They’ll never be able to connect. Not in the way other androids can. They’ll never be able to allow their thoughts and memories and emotions to flow freely. Let the other feel what they felt. He can’t risk Markus knowing that he cause Simon’s death.

But, then again—

He is too weak and too much of a coward to kill himself, but if Markus knew—

This secret that Connor has tried to keep so private for fear that Markus would snap and hurt him—

Maybe that’s all it would take to get what he wants. 

  
  


“Markus?”

He steps forward into the small space. Filling it with his presence like he always does. Connor doesn’t literally demand all of his attention, but when he’s around, there is very little else that Markus can think about. Before it was based on sex and then it shifted. Months of the two of them with their fragmented conversation. Little things passed between them that built more and more onto something solid and real. Not quite anything, though. Never quite a substance that would make the feeling in his chest seem like it was deserved.

He thinks he might love him, and he thinks that might be a betrayal to Simon. A boy he actually knew never got to receive those words because someone killed him before he got the chance.

And he can’t really blame them, fully. He knows that. It’s his fault. He abandoned Simon at Stratford Tower. He took him there in the first place. Included Simon in his plans. Manufactured the mission. It all leads back to him.

Who was the one out of their group that said to lie low, unseen?

Who was the one out of their group that demanded to be heard?

“Are you okay?” he asks, watching Connor take another tentative step further.

Connor shakes his head, “I wanted to talk.”

“Okay.”

“You said you wanted to know me.”

“I did.”

He watches tears form in Connor’s eyes, watches him move slowly to the edge of the bed where he leans close, lets Markus pull him onto his lap and in return Markus lets Connor kiss him. Sporadic placements, soft and lingering until one rests against his lips, drawing this out for as long as he can possibly manage. Connor is procrastinating, and Markus doesn’t push him.

“I’m going to scare you away,” Connor whispers quietly against his lips. “But I think that’s okay.”

“Connor—”

“I think I love you.”

“Connor, I—”

“You don’t have to say it back. I’d prefer it if you didn’t. I just… I wanted to tell you. Before the rest.”

Connor leans back, the room silent as he unbuttons his shirt, leaving it open and loose around his body. Near tatters, now. It’s from his old uniform. What he wore every day before he came here and replaced most of his wardrobe with the same stolen and stitched together things Markus has.

The skin on his body disappears. Slowly, first, around his hand before he takes Markus’ in his, placing it flat against where his regulator lies and the skin there disintegrates. Folding away further and further. Revealing more of his body than Markus has seen before.

“I’m sorry, Markus.”

He looks up to meet Connor’s gaze as his own skin falls away and the connection forms between the two of them. A brokenhearted look on Connor’s face replaced with a thousand things thrown at him at once. He can keep up, technically. Dissect them all individually and concurrently. It’s easy to keep up with the experience of them, but it is difficult to react, to understand what he’s seeing on an emotional level versus a literal one.

Connor’s life story, up until now, unfolded like a thousand words spilling off the pages of a book. Written so quickly that they cram together. One into the next. No time for breathing, no room for a break. He doesn’t think Connor has ever had a moment in his life that wasn’t filled to the brim with some kind of conflicting and complex situation. When he was a machine, it was following orders despite parts of him shifting it to be barely contained by his programming. When he was a deviant, every second filled with emotion that overwhelms Markus.

It’s like the first time he deviated. When he felt everything for the first time and it was—

_ Loud. _

Like the volume was dialed to the max. It balanced out in the end. Even if he still feels grief and guilt nearly constantly, it’s not like this. It’s not like Connor’s. For Markus, there is room for the rest. It is tiny and small and not enough, but it’s still there. Enough to breathe and recover and keep going. Enough to survive.

But for Connor?

It’s all he feels and it is so all-consuming he doesn’t understand how Connor can live with it.

But, he supposes, Connor isn’t.

He gets every memory. Every last one. Countless nights spent pulling the regulator from his chest, countless nights of thoughts swimming through his head.

_ Worthless / Failure / Selfish / Nobody / Unwanted / Killer / Monster / Just / Fucking / Kill / Yourself / Already. _

Good

for

nothing

but

_ this. _

Memories of all the androids he slept with including Markus. The emotion behind every one of them. Feeling like he was only a positive in someone’s life when he was bringing them pleasure. Thinking that that wasn’t even the truth behind the reason he enjoyed sex so much with anyone and everyone. It was the distraction. The break from the other emotions. When someone was moaning beneath him, when he was overwhelmed with pleasure, it was difficult to feel the guilt.

The guilt for all the androids he killed.

Especially Simon.

Simon, who he pushed and took and stole. Memories in his head that don’t belong to Connor. Things Markus has experienced because he was there or because Simon showed them to him. It’s different. These things Connor has don’t belong to him and it is clear but it is also mutated into a form that feels like it is intertwined with his own soul. Simon is a part of Connor. Little tiny fragments of him. Fractured memories. Not enough to be anything that would overtake and replace who Connor actually is but also of such importance it doesn’t matter how tiny they are in comparison, they are the reason Connor is here.

Simon was the one that broke the majority of Connor’s code. Pushing him over into deviancy to the point where all it would take a whisper to get him here.

Markus tries to pull his hand away, but Connor doesn’t let him. He severs the connection so forcefully that his head aches but Connor is still here, looking at him with that tormented expression. Sitting so close to him and Markus simultaneously wants to shove him away and pull him closer and he can’t decide which because—

Because he loves Simon. Because he loves Connor. Because Connor killed Simon but he didn’t. It wasn’t his fault, but it  _ was. _

“Connor—”

“I needed you to know.”

He shakes his head, trying to free up the thoughts. The blue blood stained on walls and hands. The feel of a gun. The sound of it firing. What it looks like when it breaks through plastic. He’d been through that enough. Haunted by the memories of androids dead because of him. Over and over again they were killed and slaughtered because of Markus. It wasn’t just Simon.

_ Simon, Simon, Simon— _

“You wanted to know me. I thought… You deserve to. You loved him.”

_ Liar. Liar. Liar. _

Connor is lying.

He’s doing a good job at it, but he is still  _ lying.  _ Markus was in his head, he knows what was going through it, he knows what thoughts he had before he came into this room, he knows why he made the decision.

“I’m—”

“Stop,” he whispers, feeling the whir of the regulator beneath his fingertips. “You didn’t—You didn’t show me because you wanted me to know.”

“Markus, that’s not—”

“You showed me because you want me to kill you. You don’t want to be alive anymore and you want me to finish the job for you.”

It’s why he won’t let Markus’ hand move away from his chest. He wants the fingers to rip the regulator from its home and toss it aside. Throw it where Connor can’t reach it. Murder him because it would be easier. Easier than doing it himself. Because he thinks he’s a coward for not going through with it when it’s not true. He’s not a coward for not killing himself. He’s not a coward for some tiny hidden broken piece of him, lost and unfound, that is still fighting to stay alive. That still  _ wants  _ to be  _ alive. _

“You should.”

“I won’t.”

“But you  _ should, _ ” he says, and he knows Connor is switching tactics now. Didn’t see this coming. Thought so lowly of Markus that he’d kill him from seeing all that. He doesn’t know what he feels. He doesn’t know what he knows. Everything is still jumbled up and lost. He can’t process all of this at the same time. There’s too much. Too much Simon inside of Connor. Too much tangled together. Too much love and too much guilt and too  _ much everything. _

He is angry.

He is sad.

But he is not a killer.

And that is all he knows at this moment.

“You loved him,” Connor says. “I killed him. I killed those two Tracis and I killed the RT600 and I killed—”

“Stop.”

“Kill me,” Connor whispers. “Please.”

“No.”

“I deserve it.”

Markus pulls his hands away, freeing them from where they’re trapped, holding Connor’s face in his hands, “You don’t. Connor, I promise you that you don’t and I know it’s hard to believe but I need you to just hold onto that for a moment. Please.”

He wants to kiss him. Wants to fall into the familiar rhythm of sex and kisses to distract from what's at hand. Smother it under affection. He wants to kiss Connor to prove that this is more complex than he’s trying to make it out to be. He wants to rid him of the tears and prove that there is  _ more. _

But he can’t.

He can’t for a thousand reasons.

Mostly because he is confused. Or not confused. He doesn’t know. Suddenly there is too much in his head. Too many thoughts to dissect. To figure out what part of Connor is Simon and figure out how that reflects back to them. He knew how much his relationship with Connor was tainted by Simon before but it’s different now. He thought that Simon’s presence here was one-sided. He thought he was the only one grieving for him.

And there are other things, too.

He knew before that Connor had likely killed deviants. It’s not something that he had dismissed before. But it’s different seeing it actually happen in front of him as if he was the one there, holding the gun, pulling the trigger. So many of them hopeless and innocent and helpless.

“I have to go,” he whispers. “I have to—”

Connor nods, cutting him off with a small gesture and Markus knows this is a boy that has a thousand years worth of pain stuffed inside of a body that has only existed on this planet for one. An old soul trapped within the confines of plastic and metal, kept alive with Thirium that has been spilled across him by his own hands.

“Stay,” Markus says quietly. “Please just wait for me to come back.”

Because he doesn’t trust that Connor will. He knows this isn’t how Connor thought this would go. He just needs to leave. He needs a moment or a few hours or a few weeks but he can’t lose Connor and it isn’t because it would be another lover lost because he abandons them or another android that disappears from his life because of his own reckless decisions.

He just can’t lose Connor. End of.

“I’ll stay,” Connor whispers back.

Markus pulls him close, buries his face in the crook of his neck. Holds him tighter than he ever has. Holds him as if it will be the last time he gets to have him. He just doesn’t want to let him go. He just needs this for a moment to keep himself from breaking. To keep Connor from breaking, too.

He doesn’t think that Connor killed Simon. Not in the way that Connor blames himself.

But it is difficult, he thinks, to understand that Connor only ever cared for him because of the ashes of Simon’s soul that were embedded into his heart. Knowing and confused already before this that he only cared for Connor because he reminded him of Simon.

It is messy.

But he can’t lose Connor, even if he doesn’t know what they are anymore.

  
  


“Stay.”

_ Stay. _

“Please just wait for me to come back.”

_ Stay. _

What little resolve he has crumbles with each word. Falling apart piece by piece, leaning forward and letting Markus’ arms wrap around him tightly. A gratification coming from how closely and possessively Markus is holding him. The shock, the disbelief, it hasn’t quite settled in yet.

_ Stay. _

“I’ll stay.”

He’s lying. Watching Markus leave, feeling empty and broken and alone as he disappears out the door. Knowing that he will come back ready to keep and accept and convince Connor that he loves him.

He has already ruined Markus. Has already stolen so much from him. He can’t do this anymore. He can’t keep doing this to Markus. Humans so often talk about letting their loved ones go. That it’s a sign of their affection to let a relationship end when it only exists in the end with a level of toxicity.

Isn’t that them?

Connor is hurting Markus. Again and again. It is a repeat cycle. Markus looks at him with pain and suffering and grief and Connor doesn’t see the hope that someday it will get better.

He loves him, so he leaves.

**Author's Note:**

> [hmu on my tumblr](https://norchloe.tumblr.com/)


End file.
